


We're Okay

by Civilbloodoncivilhands



Category: Andi Mack (TV)
Genre: M/M, TJ pov, slight anxiety and panic attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 08:46:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19826629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Civilbloodoncivilhands/pseuds/Civilbloodoncivilhands
Summary: Tj and Cyrus serving detention together after getting in trouble for taking a gayride on the golf cart





	We're Okay

**Author's Note:**

> so as much as i loved the last episode because gayy it was a little mmm suspicious that cyrus kinda just dropped the kira situation so like,,, heres some stuff addressing that sort of

In hindsight stealing the golf cart a second time after getting in trouble for it the first time probably wasn’t the best of ideas, but it’s not like I’ve really been making anything but poor decisions lately. Detention’s better this time though. For one thing the teacher is Mrs. Lourk instead of Mr. Bag because Mr. Bag loudly declared to Principal Metcalf that he couldn’t spend any more time in a quiet room with me if the school didn’t want a strangulation case on their hands. For another, I was actually smart enough to bring food along this time which is probably the smartest thing I’ve done in a really long time. And then, of course, Cyrus is here with me this time.

On the one hand I do feel really bad for getting him in trouble, but on the other… It’s Cyrus! Am I just supposed to _not_ be excited about getting to spend more time alone with him? Mrs. Lourk doesn’t count since she’s currently slumped against her desk showing minimal signs of life, which is pretty typical of her. It’s kind of a miracle the school hasn’t fired her yet, but I’m guessing they just can’t be bothered. The quality of English teachers isn’t really high on their list of priorities. 

“Hey. Cyrus.”

He’s sitting about two rows left of me and three rows ahead and in my opinion that’s way, way too far away. I don’t know when I started wanting to be close to him all the time, but recently it’s become really hard to control my random urges to get as close to Cyrus as I possible can. I find excuses to press our shoulders together, and to grab onto his arm when I’m excited, and to sit so close that our knees touch, and when my trial was done, even though I was found guilty, I pulled him into a hug anyway. It was warm, and safe, and made my stomach do really funny, little twisty things, and made my heart beat the fastest it’s ever beat in my entire life and now I can’t stop thinking about hugging Cyrus. And I mean, yeah that might, maybe kind of sound like a crush, but it’s not worth even thinking about because there’s no way Cyrus feels the same. He’s like the most perfect person ever and I’m just Tj Kippen whose idea of being a good person is to steal a golf cart. Twice.

He hasn’t turned back to look at me, and the only thing I can see is the back of his head and it’s not fair because the back of his head is really freaking cute. His face is cuter though. Cause he’s got nice eyes and stuff. And a really nice smile. And his hair looks really soft. And when he speaks his voice is nice.

Aaaaand _this_ is why I’m gay and not a poet.

“Cyrus!” I whisper-shout as loudly as I can without waking Mrs. Lourk and then crumple up a piece of discarded paper from my backpack, and chuck it at the back of Cyrus’s stupidly cute head.

He turns around to look at me with an amused smirk on his face and I can feel myself grinning back at him.

“Hey.” I whisper softly.

“Hey.” He whispers back.

I sit there for way longer than I care to admit, just staring at Cyrus with a stupid, sappy grin on my face, but it’s okay because he just continues to stare back at me and if I realize that he has one of the cutest smiles I’ve ever seen and then proceed to mentally file it away in my mind so I can recall it when I’m having trouble falling asleep then absolutely _no one_ needs to know.

He’s still too far away though, so I quickly glance at Mrs. Lourk and then tip toe over to sit at the desk right beside Cyrus, turning my chair towards him so that our knees can accidentally brush against each other easier.

He carefully closes his math textbook, not even bothering to save the page he was on, and turns towards me, our knees brushing – accidentally of course – as he does so.

“So,” I lean in towards him, whispering quietly.

“So,” He leans towards me and whoa we’re really _really_ close together. I can feel myself starting to turn red, but I don’t move away. Partially cause that would probably just make it seem more awkward, but also because this isn’t that uncomfortable. Just two friends, who are bros and comfortable in their masculinity, staring into each others’ eyes with their faces super close together. I’m sure this is normal.

“Um… How are you?”

“I’m good,” He answers, laughing softly, “How are you?”

“Good! Great! I’m having the time of my life!”

“Right! I forgot you were a veteran with this kind of thing. You’ll need to brief me on the dos and don’ts of life as a delinquent.”

“Ok,” I lean in even further, smiling at him in a jokey, conspiratory way, “Lesson number one: no heavy breathing. It alerts the authorities to our presence,” I nod towards Mrs. Lourk who has started snoring loudly, “And I really don’t feel like returning to a life of solitude stuck all the way over there,” I point back towards my own desk and then turn back to Cyrus as he nods solemnly telling me to continue.

“Lesson two: Sustenance.”

“I don’t have any.”

“I know. Here.” I hold up a granola bar, and Cyrus grabs at it eagerly, tearing it open and taking a bite.

“Never have I had such a satisfying meal in my entire life ever,” He mumbles dramatically around the food, spewing granola slightly.

“Good. Because I had to do things, _terrible_ things, to get this for you. _Unmentionable_ things! Things that I never want to do again –” I dissolve into a fit of giggles unable to keep up the serious attitude anymore.

Cyrus starts to giggle too and sprays out an entire bite of granola bar, getting it all over me and the floor, which just makes us both laugh harder, leaning in to each other for support and covering our mouths to try and stifle the sound. Eventually, we’re able to control our laughter enough that waking Mrs. Lourk is no longer a concern, and I pull back to look at him fondly, breathing heavily.

“Sorry for getting you in trouble Underdog.”

“Don’t be. Riding around on that golf cart was exhilarating!”

“Better than the swings?” I nudge his knee teasingly, but for some reason he stops laughing almost immediately and turns away from me to face the front again. He opens his math textbook to a page somewhere in the middle and starts to work through some complicated word problem that I’m pretty sure has nothing to do with the unit we’re currently studying.

I’ve done something wrong again, of course, but I have no idea what. Cyrus is the one person who gets me more than anyone and I used to think I got him too, but lately he’s been acting distant and is getting harder and harder to read. I thought we were past whatever awkwardness we had fallen into after he offered to be my lawyer for the stupid trial, but I guess not. Unless this is some new thing I don’t know about. Not that I really understood what was going on before. Hanging out with Kira should not be a crime, but Cyrus had blown it all out of proportion acting like we were spending all our time together and being a couple as if that wasn’t the most unenjoyable thing I could ever think of in my life.

“Hey,” I place my hand gently on his shoulder, but he shrugs it off and I feel like I’ve been shot through the heart even though it wasn’t that big of a deal. I sit on both my hands instead, to keep myself from reaching for Cyrus again, not wanting to make him uncomfortable in anyway, and start to tap my feet nervously, “Ok. Look, I know you’re upset with me, and I’m sorry for whatever I did, but I can’t fix this if you won’t tell me what’s wrong! Please just tell me what I did and I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

“I’ve already _told_ you Tj. But you don’t _listen_.”

 _What?_ “Is this about Kira again? Because I’ve told you we’re not a couple! I don’t even like her that much really! We’re just playing basketball!”

“That’s not what it looks likes to me,” He snaps, and I can feel myself starting to get defensive. I’m trying not to yell, but it’s getting really really hard especially since he won’t even look at me anymore.

“What do you want from me Cyrus? I’ve already told you we’re not a couple! _Why_ won’t you believe me?”

“Because you two would be perfect for each other,” Finally he turns to look at me, but his face is all red and he looks like he’s about to cry and his hands are balled, and what right does he have to be upset?! He’s the one that’s poking holes in our relationship and seeing what he wants to see even if I tell him that nothing is going on.

“You both love basketball, and you’re both super popular, and you’re cute and she’s pretty so why wouldn’t you be a couple?”

“Because I don’t even _like_ girls!”

No. No. _No._ No no no no no no. Back track. Say _something_ else! Because there is no way that I just said what I think I just said.

Cyrus just sits there staring at me, opening and closing his mouth like he wants to say something but he doesn’t know what, and I can feel my brain short-circuiting because I have no idea what to say either and it’s way too quiet in here. My head starts to pound, and I can feel my blood pumping through my veins and I’m trying really _really_ freaking hard not to panic and I know Cyrus isn’t going to be homophobic because he’s Cyrus and he just wouldn’t be, but it wasn’t supposed to happen like this!

It’s too quiet. It needs to stop being so quiet.

The bell rings, and I launch myself out of my seat, scrambling backwards to reach for my backpack and then running towards the door, yanking it open and jumping out into the mass of students rushing through the hallway to get to their next class. I have history next, but there is no way I’m going to be able to just sit there and listen to the teacher talk about the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, when all I want to do is punch a wall and then curl up in a ball in some dark closet and whither away and die.

I pull open the door to the bathroom and breathe a sigh of relief when I find it empty. If I just breathe everything will be okay, because you know, Cyrus probably didn’t even hear me say what I definitely did not say. This is all a joke and this isn’t real and none of this is happening and I bet I’m actually probably asleep so, you know. Everything’s fine. I drop my bag onto the cracked, tile floor beside the sink, and turn the tap as far as it will go. The water rushes out, and I splash it over my face, not caring if it drips onto my shirt or not.

I’m overreacting and I know I’m overreacting, but I always overreact and knowing that I’m overreacting isn’t really doing anything to get me to stop overreacting.

Okay Tj. Positive thoughts. Positive Expectations. Positive outcomes. Cyrus didn’t answer so maybe he didn’t hear. Except that’s like super unlikely because you basically _yelled_ in his face so like, okay, he heard and didn’t say anything, but that’s probably just because he didn’t want to say the wrong thing which is _good_. And that makes sense because Cyrus is a good person and he wouldn’t be mean about this and okay, maybe you didn’t plan on coming out to him anytime soon and this isn’t ideal, but the perfect coming out isn’t really a thing because movies and books lie to you so like, this isn’t the worst thing in the world and that makes it a good thing and you just need to breathe and okay stop thinking because this isn’t making anything better.

Okay.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

The door opens gently behind me and I turn around to see Cyrus peering inside. He stands there for a moment just looking at me and I open my mouth to apologize when he suddenly catapults towards me, almost bowling me over as he attacks me with a hug.

I hug him back, pulling him into my chest and squeezing tightly. I close my eyes and rest my head against his shoulder and this feels really nice. I’ve been hugged before, but it never feels like the person hugging me fully understands why I need it. Hugging Cyrus, like this, feels comforting and safe and probably the way hugs are always supposed to feel. Like he’ll hold me for as long as I need, until I feel okay again.

Okay. I’m okay. That happened and it sucks, but I’ll deal with it. I always do.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble into his shoulder hoping he can hear, “I shouldn’t have shouted, and I should have told you earlier. We could have avoided all of this if I just –”

“No. Tj, it is up to you to come out when you want to. I’m sorry I pushed you, and I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. This is like, a big thing you’re going through, and it probably isn’t gonna get any less big because there are always going to be people out there who are jerks, but I can promise you it will get easier. There are people who love you and people who support you and I want you to know that I’m one of them.”

I think about saying something else, but I’m pretty sure he understands and I really don’t want to leave our hug anytime soon, so I just stand there, on the broken tile floor of our middle school bathroom, hugging the boy who I really like, and who I’ve just come out to, and who I’ll maybe be completely honest with someday, just breathing. And I know I’m going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Just read the new texts and ofc Cyrus decided to serve Tj's initial detention with him. that boy is whipped af. also I meant to post this earlier but my wifi decided to be homophobic and crash so its going up now


End file.
